SMOOTHWALL SELECTS FINANCIALFORCE ACCOUNTING TO ALIGN SALES, SERVICES AND FINANCE ON A SINGLE CLOUD PLATFORM

Sep 11, 2013

FinancialForce Accounting is to be implemented by Smoothwall, a fast growing specialist developer and provider of Internet security and content filtering solutions, in a move that will allow the company to align sales, services and finance on a single Cloud platform. Operating from dual bases in the UK and the US and employing approximately 100 staff, the leadership team will benefit from the clarity that real-time business analysis delivers with all financial information held securely in a single system and in one place.

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FinancialForce Accounting replaces two accounting systems – Sage 200 in the UK and Quickbooks in the US – and a licensing system that has historically been used to raise invoices.

“We have been hampered by running different finance systems resulting in a fragmented view of finance with issues relating to accuracy and timeliness,” Bill Wignall, Group CFO, commented. “FinancialForce Accounting will transform our accounting processes and seamlessly handle a group view so we can see in real-time how the business is performing. Everyone, regardless of where they are, can share the same data. We will be able to streamline processes by using information already held in Salesforce CRM with no need for manual rekeying and complex integrations.”

The search for an accounting system that would integrate with Salesforce led Smoothwall to FinancialForce Accounting, which according to Bill ‘answered every question with a yes.’ “It quickly became apparent that we could transfer everything we do at present onto the same platform and significantly benefit from commonality of reporting.”

FinancialForce Accounting can support all sizes of organisation, from the smallest virtual operation to the most complex multinational corporation. The FinancialForce and Salesforce applications share the same infrastructure, database, development tools, reporting tools, user interface and the same logins. From a financial perspective, tight integration allows the Opportunity to Cash process to flow seamlessly and securely through sales, billing and receivables without any manual effort, special integrations or extraneous spreadsheets.

The ability to accommodate diverse and complex international requirements including multi-currency and global tax was a priority for Smoothwall and featured prominently in the selection criteria. The company will now have the ability to segregate transactions for the UK and the US companies and to seamlessly handle UK VAT and US Sales Tax.